


Within, Without, and Withheld

by ObsidianJade



Series: Within, Without [2]
Category: Cars (Movies), Planes (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, F/M, Gen, Humor, M/M, Multi, Not to be taken seriously, Truth or Dare, team shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 22:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14318709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsidianJade/pseuds/ObsidianJade
Summary: Deleted Scenes from the Daemon!verse.First two chapters are entirely the fault of AmbulanceRobots.  I don't recall which of us first said 'streaking', but this was the result.





	1. That's No Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmbulanceRobots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbulanceRobots/gifts).



> Because I am evidently incapable of A) staying on task (I'm trying to do laundry and my taxes), or B) writing a chapter fic without the need to do deleted-scene spinoffs from it.

It was the giggling that did it. 

He could ignore the rustling in the bushes, even the occasional yelp and curse when one of his resident idiots got on the wrong end of a piece of undergrowth, but the _giggling_... The only one of the Smokejumper boys - actually, the only one of the Smokejumpers _period_ \- who giggled like that was Drip, and only when he was doing something he shouldn’t be. 

Like skulking around Blade’s quarters at half-past you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me-o’clock. 

Sighing, he pushed back from his desk, shoved the teetering stack of paperwork back into place by sheer instinct before it could fall, and glanced down at Greer. His Husky daemon was lying quiet beside the desk, doing a very good imitation of sleep, had those pointed, white-tipped ears not been trained quite so sharply in the direction of the noise. 

“I’m going to regret it if I go look, aren’t I.” 

“Undoubtedly,” Greer answered, head settling a little more firmly on white paws. 

“Don’t they always tell you it’s better to regret the things you did do than the things you didn’t?”

“Someday,” Greer sighed, rising with deliberate reluctance, “I would like to find precisely who ‘they’ are. Biting down on them is going to be immensely satisfying.”

At one point, many years ago, Blade had worried that he couldn’t tell when his daemon was joking. He still couldn’t tell, but he had stopped worrying.

He’d rather hoped that the simple act of rolling his door open would put an end to the rustling-yelping-cursing-giggling symphony outside his walls. Sadly, it had rather the opposite effect, as there was a very loud stage whisper of _‘Shit, run!’_ , followed by the sound of several pairs of feet thudding across the greenspace between his cabin and the woods. 

Not booted feet, either. Bare, which certainly explained the frequency of the cursing. Idiots. Either someone had thought more than the regulation-allowed two beers was a good idea, or they’d been playing Truth or Dare again. 

He couldn’t honestly justify banning a children’s game from the Base, really - even if they still hadn’t found all the spaghetti after the last time. 

Leaning over the railing of the helipad, he glared after his retreating troops. It only took him a split-second to jerk his head back again, somewhere between outrage and disbelief. 

He didn’t realize backsides came that pale. Or that he had needed to specifically declare that streaking around the Base to be off-limits. Particularly _group_ streaking. Earth did not need an additional three moons, particularly ones that appeared even paler than the original. 

The distinct farmers’ tans only served to make the image even more ridiculous. 

Turning around, with every intention of going to bed and putting the boys on six months of latrine duty in the morning, Blade managed half a step back towards his doorway before jolting to a stop in utter astonishment. 

It wasn’t unusual for Windlifter to appear places suddenly and soundlessly; despite his height and his unsubtle daemon - whom Blade could see snickering on the roofline of the storage hanger - the man was a virtual ninja. 

What was a little unusual, though, was the fact he was standing utterly naked on Blade’s deck. 

Well, not _utterly_ naked - he was still wearing his necklace. 

Not that it did much of anything to hide him. Windlifter had a swimmer’s build, lean and broad-shouldered, every muscle sleek and defined. His face, as usual, was utterly expressionless, and he regarded Blade with his typical endless calm.

He also, in stark contrast to the boys, did not appear to have a single tan line anywhere on his body. 

Blade resigned himself to throwing in the towel, if only so that his people would cover themselves with it. “Good night, Windlifter,” he said simply, and walked past his Lieutenant without another word, shoving the door closed behind him.

Greer had been leaning on the doorjamb, close enough not to stretch their bond but far enough to refuse involvement. “I suppose we’re going to forget that ever happened?”

“I’ve been in here doing paperwork all evening,” Blade answered severely, “and have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Greer laughed in response, but it was, at the very least, better than the giggling.


	2. Place Your Butts, err, Bets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What lead to the evens of Chapter 1. Unsurprisingly, it's all Windlifter's fault.
> 
> Daemons:
> 
> Windlifter's Awenasa is a golden eagle.  
> Pinecone's Farrell is a swallow-tailed kite.  
> Dynamite's Kendrick is a European badger.  
> Patch's Max is a prairie dog.  
> Avalanche's Halvor is a caribou.  
> Drip's Tallulah is a springbok.  
> Blackout's Carissa is a bighorn ewe.

Poker Night on the Base was never boring, Dynamite reflected. She should probably shut her mouth at some point before she started catching flies, but voluntary muscle control had abandoned her somewhere around the end of Windlifter’s last sentence. The fact that Pinecone, Patch, Kendrick, Farrell, and Max were regarding him with identical expressions of disbelief was less comforting than it should have been.

When her boys had come up short on matching Windlifter’s bet - fifteen bucks, a bag of pretzels, and three nights of KP - the man had gazed across the table at them with the ghost of a smirk on his mouth and offered a side wager, with the winner awarded a _favor_ from the loser. 

Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded like the start of a bad porn movie. Coming from Windlifter, it sounded like the start of unmitigated, water-balloon-and-glitter-filled chaos. 

“ _Hell_ no,” Dynamite declared, slapping her own cards face-down on the table. “There is no way I am anteing up an unspecified favor to anyone at this table, least of all _you_.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her team or her fellow Lieutenant - she would, and did, trust her life to them any day of the week. Trusting her _dignity_ to them, however...

“Nope,” Patch declared simply, tossing her own cards down beside Dynamite’s, as Max shook his head vigorously from his spot in her lap. “Sucker me once, Winds...”

“Uh-uh, fold. I ain’t trustin’ an open-ended bet either, Windlifter. I’d wind up dancing the cha-cha painted purple and think it was all my own idea!” Pinecone declared, snapping her own cards down on the table beside Patch’s. 

Even Windlifter gave her a weird look for that one, but then, it was a pretty weird mental image. 

“....DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE CHA-CHA?” Avalanche asked finally, not so much breaking the silence as obliterating it. 

Pinecone, busy collecting her poker ‘chips’ - actually potato chips, sour cream and cheddar - Drip kept trying to eat her bets - back into their bag, ignored the question, but Farrell, nested down on the sofa where his sharp eyes couldn’t pick out anyone’s cards, snorted audibly. 

“M’girl’s got four years of ballroom dancin’ championships, ‘Lanche. She could tango your toes off.”

“Only ‘cause I’d be steppin’ on ‘em,” Pinecone countered. “Haven’t practiced in years.” 

“Two years ain’t -”

A throat cleared, sharply, and Awenasa, Windlifter’s golden eagle daemon, poked her head over the back of the couch. “Is anyone accepting the bet, or is this conversation proceeding down any further rabbit holes?”

The three boys exchanged glances, and Dynamite groaned. She loved them all like brothers, and they were the best damn crew she’d ever had the pleasure of working with, but when faced with anything involving the words ‘bet’ or ‘dare’, their collective IQ dropped to approximately the level of a paving stone. 

“We’ll do it!” Drip announced, to enthusiastic nods from the other two, and Pinecone dropped her head into her hands. From the other side of the sofa came three loud groans and a repetitive thunk that sounded distinctly like a bighorn ewe beating her head against the floor. (It wasn’t the first time Dynamite had heard that sound.)

“So what is our wager?” Blackout asked, wisely a tad warier than the others. Not wise enough to _not do it_ , but enough to realize that doing it was probably very stupid. 

“The winner,” Windlifter answered slowly, his eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance as though he was contemplating the bet, though Dynamite suspected he had planned this at least six days in advance, “will be... the one to cause Blade the greatest disconcertion.” 

The thunking sound from beyond the sofa intensified. Dynamite eyed the table in front of her and contemplated imitating Carisa’s actions. 

“Uh, how are we gonna measure that?” Drip asked. Dynamite wasn’t sure if he knew what disconcertion even meant, but the question was valid. 

“If you cause him greater disconcertion than I, you will be punished,” Windlifter answered calmly, and the boys unanimously blanched. Blade’s punishments were nobody’s idea of fun. “If I cause him greater disconcertion than you, it will likely not be spoken of again.”

Whether because Windlifter was a freaky stealth pranking ninja and wouldn’t likely get caught, or because Blade simply wouldn’t punish his Lieutenant, wasn’t specified. Dynamite strongly suspected the latter. When they knew in advance Windlifter was going to prank, he pranked massively and with spectacular results. His best and most subtle stuff was saved for when nobody expected it - like the Spanish Inquisition, only funny. 

“Soooo....” Blackout drew out the word, his expression thoughtful. “We gotta mess with the Boss? That’s loco, man. Flat crazy.” 

“WHAT’S OUR FORFEIT?” Avalanche asked. He didn’t have a damn bit of nerve showing, but the fact that he asked the question...

Windlifter’s shoulders rolled through an offhanded, graceful shrug. “Rather than a single, collective favor, each of you would -”

“FORGET I ASKED!!”

“So... gotta throw Blade for a loop?” Drip asked, glancing between his teammates. When they nodded in response, Drip stood up, shucked off his tee-shirt, and started unfastening his pants.

Pinecone squeaked and covered her eyes with both hands. Patch idly dipped her hand into Pinecone’s bag of chips and and munched. Dynamite stared, the growingly familiar sense of disbelief overtaking her. 

“If we wanna consternate Blade, we’re gonna go streaking!”

Oh, no. Oh dearest God, no. Really, what had she done to deserve this?

Pinecone made a sound like a traumatized mouse. From the couch, there was a burst of laughter and ruffling feathers, followed by a thump and a curse as Farrell literally laughed himself off the sofa. 

Blackout, a little more hesitant than Drip, slowly began peeling off his shirt, a blush riding high on his cheekbones. 

Avalanche, by contrast, let out an earsplitting whoop and had stripped off in about twelve seconds, his clothing flying in all directions. Dynamite’s eyes tracked the parabola of his boxer-briefs as they sailed over the couch to where the daemons had gathered, and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her helpless laughter when they hooked neatly onto the tip of Halvor’s right antler. 

God, those were some pasty butts. 

Dynamite’s brain veered into two simultaneous directions, one being ‘gotta get those boys to tan more evenly’, the other, a far more forceful ‘I do not care what color their butts are and I don’t want to see them again!’

Not that it stopped her from watching those pasty butts as they lined up and marched out of the hanger, bare feet slapping on the concrete, hands cupped protectively over groins. 

Well, two sets of hands, anyway. Avalanche had apparently traded both modesty and shame for greater volume. Not, her traitorous brain noted before she could clamp down on the thought and burn it, that he had anything to be ashamed of. Boy was nicely in proportion. 

She was reasonably sure the bizarre sound she heard from the other side of the couch was Kendrick choking on his own spit.

As soon as the door bumped shut behind the three boys - their daemons unanimously declining participation in this unholy mess and remaining precisely where they were - Windlifter glanced down at his watch, one long forefinger gently tapping the table as he counted down to... something. 

After about a minute and a half, he silently rose from the table and began unbuttoning his shirt.

Pinecone - who had only lifted her head from her hands when the door had closed behind her teammates - made a sound very like a shriek and buried her head in her folded arms, forehead thudding against the table. Patch grabbed another handful of chips, offering them on an open palm to Dynamite, who accepted one on autopilot. 

Windlifter - now slipping out of his jeans and underwear with no apparent shame or awkwardness, but also without the exhibitionist exuberance of the boys - had a very nice physique, there was no question about that. He ran naturally lean, unlike Avalanche and Drip’s brawn or Blackout’s stockiness, and his constant exercising left him perfectly toned. 

He also didn’t have a single tan line anywhere on his body. All of the many, many inches of his skin, save those marked by tattoos, were a uniform shade of burnished copper.

“How do you - “ Dynamite half-began, before her thinking brain caught up with her mouth and she realized that not only was she ogling her naked teammate - technically her naked _superior_ \- asking him about his tanning habits was probably not polite.

There was another choking snicker from somewhere behind the sofa that she was quite sure was Kendrick, if the half-hysterical amusement rolling through their bond was any indication. 

Windlifter threw her a miniscule smirk and slid soundlessly out the door, his bare feet utterly silent against the concrete. There was a moment’s pause before Awenasa launched herself off the couch and out the door after him. 

“So... that happened.” Patch did not look particularly perturbed by any of this. Briefly, Dynamite wondered where the girl got her calm. Maybe she ordered it in bulk from Windlifter’s supplier?

“Wonder how long they’ll be?” Pinecone muttered, head still buried in her arms. 

Patch, smirking, pulled a sheet of paper and a pen from her pocket. “We could place bets?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dipper had evidently gone to bed early that night, as she never showed up while I was writing this sequence. Which is... probably for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering about how bizarrely I was writing any references to Greer, Blade's daemon; Greer is agender. Greer also refuses to let me use they/them pronouns because EVERYTHING ABOUT BLADE IS DIFFICULT, right down to his soul. Therefore, writing Greer requires a f***ing ridiculous amount of verbal tap-dancing.


End file.
